Tainted Saviors
by VanessaxAtalanta
Summary: AU of Kanata Kara Volume 2: What if Noriko had been forced to defend Izark when their hiding place was found? NOT meant to be religious.
1. Casualty

Disclaimer: The characters, place names, and story of From Far Away/Kanata Kara are the property of Kyoko Hikawa (or Hikawa Kyouko, however you prefer to say it).

Author's Note: Oh…kay. So, I don't usually do Alternate Universe fics. I don't usually _like _AU's. Heck, I don't even _read _crossovers if I know what I'm getting into.

Still, I couldn't help but wonder what might have happened if Izark had taken just that much longer to recover his strength in Volume 2.

That said, here is how I think it would have gone.

* * *

><p>Chapter 1: Casualty<p>

"It looks suspicious here."

"It's all junk."

Voices—two of them, male and harsh, speaking the language of this strange, brutal place. Hiding behind the said 'junk', an eighteen-year-old Japanese girl felt her insides freeze, her heart spasm, and her muscles clench in that jolt of apprehension all prey feel when a hunter is near.

"What the heck. Remove the whole thing." Rattles and crashes followed as the searchers kicked at the baskets, crates and urns stacked around and concealing the fugitives.

Beside her, Noriko felt rather than saw her swordsman ally tense, straining against whatever paralysis gripped him, but to no avail. Trembling, the girl reached out and grasped the hilt of Izark's sword, just as torchlight shone in and a face—a man's face, though it bore a distinct resemblance to a blond gorilla—peered over the containers she had piled up to disguise their refuge. The monkey-faced cutthroat let out a guffaw as he dropped back down out of her sight.

They were discovered.

The two bandits charged through the pile like a pair of linemen, weapons ready. Noriko did not have time to heft the sword as she scrambled up to stand in front of Izark, wood and pottery splintering all around them.

Instinct made her reach out for something, anything. Her fingers closed on a bit of coolness with jagged edges; a shard of ceramic that had flown when the rogues began breaking things.

Monkey-face was upon her. Hardly knowing what she was doing, Noriko chucked whatever it was she'd found at him with all her strength–

"Urrgh?"

The bandit faltered, dropping both sword and torch to clutch at his face. The chip had bounced off harmlessly, but there must have been something helpful in its curve, because the man was now frantically rubbing his eyes.

His comrade shoved passed him, blade in hand. This time Noriko was ready. She blocked his first swing clumsily, her arms shaking as her opponent added his weight to that of Izark's sword. In the light of Monkey-face's fallen torch, she saw the cutthroat—it was the balding man who had fled their inn room earlier—blink, then sneer.

Noriko choked as her head collided with something hard; he had rammed her, throwing her backward. In the next instant, the bandit stepped forward and stabbed down.

She must have been lighter than he expected, however, because he paused a moment, finding his sword point embedded in a grain sack where he seemed to think she should have landed. It occurred to the dazed girl—in that state in which time slows down—that he couldn't be very bright.

Then Time sprinted past.

Noriko staggered up again, hands empty; Izark's sword was gone. She was unable to look for it—couldn't bring herself to look away from her attacker, who advanced with mocking slowness.

Frightened though she was the girl had realized something the moment the second bandit came after her—that Balding had completely forgotten about Izark. She knew this to be true, because the cutthroat's blow had knocked her away from her guard position in front of the prone warrior—if he'd had the presence of mind, Balding could have used that downward strike on the swordsman, who was after all his real target. Now, however, the thief had his back to Izark as he closed in on Noriko. The young man was still in the same spot he'd been in when the thieves found them—he was still fighting to rise.

The longer she could keep the robbers' attention, she reasoned, the better chance Izark had of survival. Her hands were again searching blindly as she retreated toward the back wall…

The thief rushed forward, his weapon raised…

She tripped backward, and knew she couldn't recover in time. Cringing, she involuntarily flung up her arm—

Something warm splattered against her open palm, her face and dress. Hesitantly, Noriko opened one eye, then the other. The bandit stood stock-still, gaping down at her where she knelt. She gaped back as he let his weapon drop to his side, then followed his stunned gaze downward… to the piece of steel embedded under his ribs… then down the length of the metal, which was levered up by the bags she had tripped over… and finally to the hilt of Izark's sword, and the foot, _her _foot, planted _just so_ on the hilt.

The man lurched back, coming off the sword with a grotesque sucking noise. His blade slipped from his fingers as he gasped and gurgled, blood dripping over his lips.

"Koron?" That was Monkey-face, only just recovered, as his comrade sagged against the wall before sliding down it in collapse. His ape-like features went white as his gaze flicked to the bloody sword, and then he stepped back and opened his mouth to shout.

A slippered foot struck out of nowhere, kicking the bandit's feet out from under him. The thief fell sideways, almost landing on his assailant. Izark grabbed a hank of hair and jerked; Monkey-face's head connected with a wooden crate, and he stopped moving.

The warrior heaved a sigh of relief, which was cut short when he heard the girl gasp, and then the tumble of wreckage as she scrambled away. He dragged himself up, trying to spot her among the debris.

He found Noriko crouched against the end wall, pale and shaking as she stared at the broken Koron, her hands clamped over her mouth. Izark stumbled toward her and knelt down, blocking her view. Her eyes did not focus on him however, but remained wide and glazed with shock.

"Noriko," Izark said softly, trying to bring her around. Taking hold of her wrists, he slowly drew her hands away from her face.

It was then that she saw the blood on them. The one palm had been splattered before, and dark drops soaked and spread on the sleeve. The other had smeared the beads and rivulets on her face. Izark felt a spasm shoot through her arms as her gaze fixed on her hands, and had the good sense to release her when she pulled away to lean over sideways, retching.

_Blood, _thought the eighteen-year-old. _I'm covered in… blood. I…I…killed… a __**person**__. I… just killed…_

She hardly felt another pair of hands as they rubbed her back and held her hair. She couldn't hear the soft voice whispering to her, not that she would have been able to understand.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…"

* * *

><p><em>I FOUND THEM!<em>

It seemed as though the voice came from far away. Still, Noriko winced. Why couldn't everyone be quiet? If only she could be allowed to stop thinking for a while… The clangs and thuds coming from outside the alley Izark had left her in sounded like a sword fight. The girl tensed for a moment before she managed to bury the thought of those wicked blades. If she could just stop thinking… but the noises were too near, and had too much of an effect on her survival instincts for her to completely ignore them.

_Bo…BOSS!_

_The sound of chain links on metal…_

_Now's the time!_

Noriko peered listlessly around the corner, just in time to see the Thieves' Boss thrust his sword through Izark's chest.

Somehow, the warrior's scream ripped through the catatonic veil. Suddenly she could function again; process and react. She had to.

"[STOP!]" she shrieked, launching herself at the Boss as he raised his sword for the final blow. She collided with his side, and he howled as they fell sideways. There was a high growl and then a piercing wail. From where she knelt, Noriko stared as the strange animal that had ridden on the Boss' shoulder evaporated into the air.

However, she had more important things to think about. "Izark!" she cried as she scrambled to his side.

One of the underlings shouted something behind her, then yelped as Izark's leg snapped out.

"Iza—," Noriko began, but he took no time to reassure her. Instead, the warrior found his sword and drew himself up.

"You just missed my heart. I can still fight," he told the bandits as they stood, aghast.

And just like that, it was over. The four remaining thieves fled when their leader suddenly abandoned them.

* * *

><p>By the time they returned to the inn, Noriko had sunk back into her stupor. The landlord's wife took one look at her and hauled her to the kitchen for a bath and some clean clothes. Izark watched them go, completely ignoring the doctor's attentions. Slowly, he made his way up to the body-strewn room, where he used the wash basin to clean off most of the blood and found himself another shirt. He did his best not to look as townspeople worked around him, collecting the remains of the thieves he'd killed here.<p>

When he came back downstairs, it was to find the girl slumped on a bench in the kitchen with the landlady hovering over her, trying in vain to get her to drink some tea. Or respond at all, for that matter.

Watching from the doorway, Izark felt his eyes prickle in warning. He managed not to shed tears, but he looked sorrowfully at her vacant, half-lidded eyes; the way she sat with her back hunched over, her arms crossed tightly over her torso.

"It's like she doesn't hear me!" That was the landlady, appearing genuinely frantic. "I had to undress her and wash her _and _dress her again; she just _stood_ _there_. This tea would help, if only she would drink!" Suddenly, her gaze was focused on him. "I don't suppose… maybe you could get her to…"

And so the young man found himself straddling the bench beside Noriko, coaxing a living stone to take spoonfuls of tea. The landlady was right: the girl _did_ respond to him, after a fashion. If he could get the spoon to her lips and tilt it, she would swallow. He tried putting the mug in her hands to let her drink for herself, but thought better of it, choosing instead to hold the cup himself and pour the warm liquid slowly into her mouth. She drank obediently, but did not offer comment or open her eyes more than half-way. Finally, she finished the cup without showing the slightest improvement. After Izark explained the situation, the doctor advised that Noriko be put to bed, but that she should be watched.

Without another word, Izark stood, scooped up the spiritless girl, and carried her upstairs. The landlord followed belatedly to show him to a new room, since the original one was not exactly restful, what with the blood-smeared floor and the broken window.

The warrior set his charge down on the end of her bed, then pulled the covers back. It was not a difficult task to tuck her in; it was simply a matter of arranging her limbs in a seemingly comfortable posture. When she was securely under the blankets, Izark practically fell onto his own bed, not even bothering to get under the covers.

It was nearly half an hour before he recalled the doctor saying that she should be watched, but when he turned over, he found Noriko exactly as before, staring blankly at the ceiling.

* * *

><p>Finally, near dawn, the dozing swordsman woke to muffled sobs. He listened for a moment, feeling both relief and bitter regret as Noriko cried.<p>

Unable to resist the impulse, the young man rolled off his bed and walked to hers. She had changed position at some point, and now lay curled into a ball on her side.

"Shhhh…. Hushhhhhhh…" he whispered, gently sitting her up as he settled on the edge of the bed.

She did not 'hush'. She did whirl to face him, griping the fabric of his shirt so tightly that her knuckles turned white and sobbing on his chest. Izark stiffened, but only for a moment; he was too familiar with the emotion he sensed in her to be distant.

He hardly realized it as his right arm circled her shoulders. How many years had it been, since the first time he drew blood? No, he would not think about it; the memory was too painful. How he had longed for someone to hold him then, to tell him it was all right, that he was forgiven.

"Hush…" he mumbled again, his voice cracking as his left hand cradled the back of her head, hugging her close. "I know, I know… Shhhhh…"


	2. Absolution

Chapter 2: Absolution

Three days later, Izark led the horse the mayor of Calco had gifted him with up a steep mountain slope. Noriko clung awkwardly to the beast's back, hanging on to the saddle for dear life.

When he was fully recovered, completing his mission had been relatively easy. The only twist in the whole business was that Niva—the merchant who had been a spy for the thieves—turned out to have a rather unusual bodyguard. Izark just knew he was going to regret not being able to kill the strange warrior when he had had the chance.

The swordsman sighed, shrugging off the thought. He had more immediate problems to deal with, not least of them being—turning to coax the horse up a particularly rough incline, he stole a glance back at the girl on her perch. Though she was definitely improved from the catatonic stupor she'd been in during the hours after their battle with the thieves, the contrast between this solemn, silent young woman and the peppy little chatterbox he'd brought out of the Sea of Trees was still disturbing. If Izark didn't understand exactly what had happened that night in that storage, he might have thought they were different people entirely.

But he did know. He knew all too well.

An hour later they entered a pass, and the trail leveled out considerably. If the information the cloth peddler had given Izark was correct, the path led to a river, and then followed the watercourse down to a ford where crossing was safer. According to the merchant, there should be a good camping site near where the trail bent at the riverbank. The swordsman kept his eyes peeled for the lean-to the peddler had described. After several minutes of walking, his ears detected the sound of rushing water.

Evidently Noriko heard it too. Since the path had leveled out she no longer need fear sliding off the horse's rump, and she had gone back to the brooding contemplation that Izark found so uncharacteristic. Upon hearing the river, however, the girl looked up and focused on their surroundings.

Eventually the young warrior spotted the lean-to, and they set up camp. Well—Izark set up camp; Noriko's lack of basic skills such as making a fire still astounded him, and he wondered just who she had been in her world. In _this _world, only the wealthy could afford _not _to learn such things. Rather than trying to mime how she was supposed to help him, he sent the girl to the river for water.

The young man had a decent fire going by the time he realized that Noriko had yet to return. No—she _had_ returned, because he found both the canteen and the leather bladder he'd given her to fill with their bags under the lean-to, sweating as the air around them condensed due to the icy water they contained.

Concerned, the warrior homed in on his charge's presence before off toward the river at a brisk pace. He couldn't sense any danger, but it was unusual for Noriko to go off on her own; over the passed few days, she'd never once set foot outside a camp unless he gave her some task that required it.

He found her a little upriver, knee deep in a small eddy (a place where the current is disrupted so that it swirls instead of flowing). Watching from the tree line, Izark saw her bend and scoop up some of the sandy riverbed, which she proceed to scrub all over her hands. Even from where he was standing, he could see that the skin of her palms was turning an angry pink—she was rubbing them raw.

"Stop!" the young man heard himself shout the moment he realized what she was doing.

Startled, Noriko looked up as her guardian rushed to the bank, then skidded down it into the river—which, he discovered, was _freezing_. Ah well, his boots would dry.

"Stop," he said again, grabbing hold of the girl's wrists.

At this, the girl shocked him by trying to wrench away._ "Iya!" _No!

Izark froze, but he did not relinquish his hold. He understood that word—he'd heard it often enough in the first three or four days after he met her. It was her universal negative, something she screamed in fear and rejection—but this time, her tone carried another emotion entirely. It was almost…_anguished_.

She was sobbing now, still tugging weakly against his grip, foreign words spilling from her mouth as the tears spilled from her eyes. "[Don't touch them! They're all bloody—covered in blood—I have to—wash them—clean them—]"

But the young man could not understand her, and he could not allow her to continue this destructive endeavor. Ignoring her struggles, Izark proceeded to examine her hands—sure enough, she'd broken skin on the backs of both, causing places to well with tiny pricks of red where she had begun to bleed.

* * *

><p>The trip back to camp wasn't difficult. After some mild protest, Noriko seemed to understand that she could either walk or be carried, but they <em>were <em>going back. Even so, the warrior kept his charge in front of him, one hand placed on her shoulder—just in case. At first he tried to lead her by the wrist, but that caused another outburst.

Back at the lean-to, the swordsman bandaged the girl's hands, saw to the horse and to dinner, and laid out their blankets. Noriko seemed to have thought better of her earlier behavior, and was extremely obedient for the rest of the evening.

Long after the young woman had rolled up in her blankets, Izark sat by the fire, pondering the events of the last few hours. Honestly, what had Noriko been _thinking? _He was pleased she had figured out that sand was good for cleaning—thank all the gods, he wouldn't have to teach her how to bath. But to scrub until her hands were bloody…

_Bloody._

Images of Noriko on the night of the battle came to his mind. The way she'd stared at her hands and their coating of bandit's blood. How her soul had seemed to close for a while afterward, close and lock.

The memories flooded in then, memories of his own life that he'd tried hard to bury. _There was a thud, then a scream of pain. The madwoman had landed across the room from where he, Izark, cringed. She was clutching her shoulder as she screamed, blood leaking through her fingers. His mother—she'd attacked him with a dagger, and he wanted to live._

_But—that didn't mean he'd wanted to hurt her, too._

And then, more recently—

_The sun was setting as the people of Calco went about the distasteful business of disposing of the bodies of the thieves he'd killed. No one had bothered making coffins for these men; just as the surviving criminals would share life in prison, so would their dead comrades share a grave._

If only, _he thought, _if only there wasn't a need for this grave.

"_If I'd been recovered, they wouldn't have had to die," he said under his breath. But he hadn't been recovered, and so their foolish violence had cost them their lives._

Back in the present, the warrior's gaze fell over the sleeping girl, at the red marks under her eyes. The bandits' violence, and his illness, had cost something else, he realized. Her hands had been stained when she protected _his _life.

His life which was, if seers told truth, so much worse than worthless. And yet—

And yet …

He was grateful.

* * *

><p>"Noriko, come here."<p>

The young woman looked down at her guardian, a query in her eyes. After breaking camp in the morning, they'd ridden pillion down to the ford, where Izark dismounted and walked to the rivers edge.

Remembering that she still couldn't speak, the warrior made a beckoning gesture and waited as Noriko slid clumsily out of the saddle. The horse was trained to ground tie—it stood still, treating its dangling reins just as it would a secure tether when the girl walked away from it to join Izark by the water.

She stiffened when the young man took first one of her hands and then the other in order to unwrap the bandages, but chose not to repeat the scene from last evening. It wasn't the pain of her injuries that bothered her; it was just—her hands were so dirty. She didn't want him to touch them; _she _didn't want to touch them.

After a brief inspection of the healing, Izark crouched by the river, tugging the girl after him. She obeyed, albeit a little uncertainly, and knelt beside him on the gravelly bank.

She did let out a shocked squeak when the warrior took her right hand and plunged it into the water—it was _cold! _When she tried to pull it back however, Izark shot her a look that warned he would brook no argument.

Having settled that, the swordsman began to wash her hand. Using his own palms to accomplish the task, he worked his way over every bit of skin from the tip of each finger all the way up to her elbow, having a care for forming scabs.

Though puzzled and slightly embarrassed, Noriko found that she didn't really mind this treatment. Once she got used to it, the cold water was soothing to her chafed and swollen flesh. Then Izark took her left hand and performed the same ablutions, and the girl began to understand what he was doing.

Finished, the young man looked up to find her eyes sparkling with tears and still a little confusion. He sighed, and used a dripping index finger to tap his chest where the Thieves' Boss had run him through.

"You saved me," he told her, hoping he was making himself clear. Just to be sure, the warrior rested the fingertips of his right hand against the knuckles of her left. "Your actions, Noriko," he said, then brought his left hand to hover over his heart, "saved my life."

For one very long moment, Izark waited as the girl simply stared at him. _She doesn't get it, _he thought, defeated. _It's just too complicated; not something you can say without words._

To his surprise, the girl suddenly nodded, then clasped the hand still touching her own. Taken aback, the warrior allowed Noriko to dip his hand in the river, and watched with growing wonder as she did for him exactly as he had just done for her, washing both arms from fingertips to elbow. Was it simple mimicry? Or—

She must have seen the searching in his eyes when she looked up after giving him back his left hand. She smiled at him—that brilliant smile he hadn't seen since the night before he took sick, the one that gave him such an unfamiliar sense of…_well-being—_and touched first his right hand, then the shoulder strap of his sword belt. Finally, as Izark's eyes widened in realization, she brought her hand to rest over her heart, just as he had done.

"[You too, Izark. You saved me, too.]"

* * *

><p>Author's Note: I used a <em>lot <em>of poetic license in this fic; perhaps even a bit too much? Please review, especially if you have any comments or complaints.

Do you know, I've never actually gotten a 'flame'. Whether that is a comment on the manners of Kanata Kara fans or on my writing, I don't know. If anyone is interested in becoming my beta, please contact me.

Thanks for reading!

~Muse


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